Waterloo group hit the big time after their songs were featured on MTV shows

By Marshall Ward, For the Chronicle

It has been said that opportunity knocks when you least expect it. Those words ring true for Jeff Chard and Chad Kreutzweiser of Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, as their music was recently featured in the MTV shows, The Real World: D.C., Styl’d, and Bad Girls Club.

“For 20 years, I was in bands trying to get attention from record companies and MTV, then I find myself in a band for the intrinsic value — where the music-making process is so easy and fulfilling — and that’s when we get a call from MTV,” said Jeff Chard, a veteran of the local music scene who formed such bands as Anti Socials, Funkchannel, The Marlins, and id vs. superego.

Kreutzweiser, who first appeared on the scene in the late ‘80s under his alter-ego, DJ Rhythmic Action — then formed alternative electronic bands Sector Seven, Master Unit, and CRE8OR — chimed in, “At first, I thought it was spam,” he said with a laugh, referring to the initial e-mail they received from MTV.

“Then I realized it was legit, as they explained that they heard our music on MySpace, and how they were looking for very specific music for a show, and they found several songs on our site that they thought were suitable from our first CD, State of Mind.”

It was right after their song Do You Know Who I Am? was featured, and credited, on an episode of Real World: DC, that Chard and Kreutzweiser saw the power of MTV. “We had a spike in sales as a number of people bought the song on iTunes,” said Chard. “It was a good buzz, knowing such a large audience had heard our music and liked it enough to buy it.”

Anthems for the Disillusioned, their follow-up to 2009’s State of Mind, was released this past May, and is available for digital download on iTunes, Rhapsody, Amazon, E-music, and Napster. MTV has already contacted Vienna Psychoanalytic Society about acquiring music from the new CD, for their hugely popular reality TV series, Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

“It’s fun to be a part of these shows, and though we never went looking for them, we figured, ‘What do we have to lose?’” said Kreutzweiser, who, like Chard, grew up listening to ‘80s Brit-pop bands like New Order and Depeche Mode. “It’s unbelievable how much we like the same kind of music,” said Kreutzweiser with a laugh. “It’s eerie, really.”

And that’s what makes Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, with their highly sophisticated sound, no ordinary band. Anthems for the Disillusioned is a sonic conceptual album, as beautifully moody vocals (Chard) and crystal clear electronic effects (Kreutzweiser) float gracefully over ominous guitar and bass lines. Themes vary from guilt, hypocrisy, and alienation to cognitive dissonance, love and truth; as tempos rise, fall to the depths, and rise again, sometimes within the space of a single song.

You Are Sleeping, with its ambient, Tangerine Dream-like atmosphere, is one of the most wistful songs on the album, with its euphoric vocals and haunting melodies. “It’s about us and our comfortable lives, and where our priorities are,” said Chard. “How we read about all the problems in the world, wanting to do something about it, yet easily fall back into our bourgeoisie lives — and that inner turmoil within us.”

Then there’s the invigorating and sweeping anthem, There’s Room for Us All, with the uplifting chorus: “What unites us is greater, What divides us is small, In this world where we’re living, There is room for us all.”

Perhaps the most aggressive track on the album — with its swirling electronica and industrial, pounding percussive effects — is Learn/Forget/Repeat, inspired by a holocaust study tour Chard took through Europe last year. “I wrote that on the plane ride home,” said Chard, who teaches history at Sir John A. Macdonald Secondary School. “History is very cyclical, we say, ‘Never again,’ but then it’s all repeated.” Kreutzweiser added, “Jeff changed after he came back from that trip, and to this day, Learn/Forget/Repeat gives me a chill.”

From the opening thumper, Feel the Pressure to the rockier and brawling, Culture of Idiocy, to the poppy elegance of the Pet Shop Boys-ish closing track, The Tell All Age (Narcissistic Cage), Anthems for the Disillusioned is an easy and compulsive listen from start to finish. It’s darkly mysterious, evocative, and primal.

“Though the album is called Anthems for the Disillusioned, which may seem pessimistic, I think it’s really about redemption, and in the end, love and embracing the things in our lives that truly matter,” said Chard.

Kreutzweiser added, reflecting on Vienna Psychoanalytic Society’s recent worldwide exposure through MTV, “It’s funny, there’s hundreds of bands out there trying to get the attention of MTV, and then when you’re not even trying, they come find you.”